NOVEMBER 2018

The Midcounties Co-operative is taking supply
chain transparency to a new level by using
Blockchain technology.
The retailer has launched a partnership with
food technology business Happerley that will
enable customers to track the provenance of
food and drink products from its Best of our
Counties range. Using the technology provided by
Happerley, customers shopping at Midcounties’
stores can learn more about the ingredients in
their food and drink products.
In an interview with Co-op News, the
society’s group chief executive, Phil Ponsonby,
explained how its co-operative values play
a key role in shaping its efforts around supply
chain transparency.
“Supply chain transparency is really important
– if you think about the original Rochdale
Pioneers, and why they started their co-op, it was
to give affordable, unaltered food to members,”
he says. “People can access affordable food in
all sorts of places nowadays but there is still this
real problem about how transparent food is. How
much do we really know about the ingredients
of the food?
“Some ingredients are not necessarily from
Britain and packaging can be misleading, they
are not necessarily of inferior quality but it is
important that consumers really know that they
are buying British.
“Also, if you think about the horse meat scandal
from five years ago, it is important for consumers to
know how suppliers are manufacturing products,
if ingredients are grown locally or animals are
bred locally.”
Mr Ponsonby joined Midcounties in 2015 as
group general manager for food retail, having
been chief operating officer at the Southern Cooperative
for eight years. He came to Midcounties
Co-operative to expand his responsibilities
beyond food. He is now also a board member
of Happerley, which was founded in 2014
by 10th generation farmer and businessman,
Matthew Rymer, and neighbour, farmer, hotelier
42 | NOVEMBER 2018